


You in this light feels new (you in this light feels like a thing i can't remember)

by sallysimpsons



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, bellamy is the annoying big brother, clarke and octavia are childhood friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 08:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20112403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallysimpsons/pseuds/sallysimpsons
Summary: “You know I can’t believe I’m actually leaving. And maybe it’s the alcohol speaking but, like -” he stopped for a moment, looked her directly in the eyes, suddenly all serious. “I’m going to miss this, our endless banter."or: Clarke, on her senior year, and her life-changing decisions. She thinks they're all going to be about college applications, but she couldn't be more wrong.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> wow, so. I've been working on this fic for like a month now and I wanted to finally post the first chapter. I haven't written/posted anything in ages, and I'm super nervous. and ahhh. I know, it's nothing special but I love writing it. 
> 
> (also: thank you, Vale for proofreading this thing, even though you haven't watched a single episode of the 100. you're a great friend.)

Clarke’s first memories were all so similar to each other: the first one she had at all, her and Octavia in the pool at the Blake’s household, Aurora probably outside keeping an eye on them despite the armbands they were wearing, and Bellamy diving into the water and showing off - just because it was the first year he wasn’t wearing them too. Then there was another one, New Year’s Eve, Clarke and Octavia were wearing their Halloween costumes since October and anytime they met outside school they demanded to wear them, so here they were, dressed as Cinderella and Snow White, roaming around the house and greeting the guests. And then there was Bellamy, who wore his pirate outfit for the occasion, chasing them around the house, screaming; parents trying to stop the chaos and telling them to keep quiet. Then he had the phase during middle school where he would ignore them at school, because he was older and it didn’t seem cool to talk with younger kids, especially _ girls _. He would still talk to them when Clarke was around, of course, as long as his friends weren’t. Recently he stopped screaming and diving into the pool, but he would find ways to annoy the hell out of his sister and her best friend. He seemed to be always around, either at home or at school, ready to say something that could only prompt a “fuck you” in response. Most of the time it was amicable, really. From Octavia side it sure was. Bellamy and Octavia had a strong bond, maybe because they were born a year and a few months apart - most people though they were twins. Sometimes they made Clarke feel sad for being an only child. But then she remembered of all the times Bellamy would come and throw Octavia in the pool out of nowhere, and a couple of times when they would start to fight, throwing flour at each other, and she thought that being alone wasn’t so bad after all. Clarke liked the quietness of her house, the solitary time she could spend drawing. 

But now that Bellamy was leaving for college, the idea of spending her final year of high school without one of the two Blake siblings around felt so weird to Clarke. Not _ bad _ , per se, but weird for sure: everyone thought that her constant banter with Bellamy was part of their everyday routine. That night he was having a farewell party at the house, all of Bellamy’s friends that were also leaving for college soon. Clarke was there, and she wasn’t sure if as Octavia’s plus one or an actual guest. In the midst of all the chaos, she decided to go outside for a while, in that house that she knew just as well as her own, if not better. Her parents were working most of the times, so Aurora ended up having a third unrequested child. The winters spent in Octavia’s room, first playing with dolls, then the Barbies. She was there anytime Octavia needed a shoulder to cry on, first when it was about her dad, then later on, about boys. And of course, there were the summers in the pool, refusing to get out until Aurora would call them for food or when she pretended to fish them out of the water with the pool skimmer. And here she was in that moment, sat by the pool, her feet in the water, the noises from the party coming from the inside, and no pool skimmer to be seen anywhere. The Blake’s mom didn’t mind leaving her kids the house for parties, as long as the pool wasn’t going to be used when alcohol was around. “I mean, you’re all underage so there won’t be any, but I’m saying just in case”. A couple of Bellamy’s friends had siblings older than 21 and so they provided the booze. From the outside, Clarke could see Octavia laughing with her cheerleader friends, some of them in Bellamy’s class and ready to leave for college in a couple of days. When Octavia decided to join the squad, Bellamy had made fun of Clarke for weeks, saying that her sister now had new friends and Clarke was jealous of them, the _ nerd _girl who was a living cliché and couldn’t get along with the cheerleaders. “Says the one who spends his evenings reading history books in his bedroom, instead of jerking off like any other kid his age,” was Clarke’s comeback once. She was still very proud of that one. 

“Got bored? Sorry, we’re not as entertaining as your usual crowd.” Clarke rolled her eyes. The host of the party, the ever charming Bellamy Blake, coming out of the house just to annoy her before leaving for California. He sat next to her, taking off his shoes, and she noticed how unbalanced he was, not even 11 pm and already wasted. He put his feet in the water too, looking at their reflection in the pool. 

“Oh, you know how it is. All that talk about college made me slightly anxious about next year.” 

“You shouldn’t though, for reasons that I’m not able to understand, you’re smart enough to get into every school you want to,” he said, nudging her. He was also pretty smart, one of the best students in his class, but she wasn’t going to tell him. Unlike him, Clarke wasn’t drunk enough to wax him in compliments. Not to mention that her number one choice for college wasn’t anywhere where she would need her brain, but her talent more. But, again, she wasn’t drunk enough to share that with him. 

“I can’t believe this, are you complimenting me, Bellamy Blake?” She went with their usual route, the sarcasm. She didn’t know any other way with him. 

“Don’t get used to it, when I’ll get back for Thanksgiving I won’t be as nice.”

“I’m sure you won’t. Can’t wait for you to put your act ‘i’m a college kid now, I’m not going to mix up with you high school kids’, like you did when we were still in middle school.” 

“I’m glad you believe that my brain stopped developing at 14, Clarke.”

“We’ll say fourteen just because you’re having a party and I don’t want to kill your mood.” He laughed then, shook his head. 

“You know I can’t believe I’m actually leaving. And maybe it’s the alcohol speaking but, like -” he stopped for a moment, looked her directly in the eyes, suddenly all serious. “I’m going to miss this, our endless banter,” he said, gesticulating wildly between the two of them. She smiled then, taking her eyes off of his. It was weird, this moment. Of all the thousands of memories she had of him, she couldn’t remember a single one in which Bellamy would say anything remotely as nice as what he was saying now. They built this facade, years and years of practice; the awkwardness of the adolescence making them compliment each other only by insulting the other. And now here he was, Bellamy Blake, telling Clarke Griffin he was going to miss _ this _. 

“I’m sure you will, who’s going to constantly remind you of that time you pissed in your bed in elementary school because Murphy made you watch a horror movie with him earlier that day?” Bellamy pushed her slightly. 

“I’ll be sure not to cross your path in case I bring back a girl from school,” he said, playful still. Before Clarke could say something, someone from inside the house called for Bellamy, probably Murphy, who was still his friend despite the horror movie accident. He managed to get up, putting one of his hands on Clarke’s shoulder, despite her protests. Before he got back inside, she called for him, and he turned to look at her. “Yeah?” 

“I’m going to miss it too,” she confessed finally, and he nodded in response. By the way he dragged himself as he got back into the house, Clarke had the feeling Bellamy wasn’t going to remember the exchange the next morning, but she sure as hell would. 

*

“Good morning! We’re seenioooors!” Octavia shouted as she got into Clarke’s car that morning, the first one of their last in high school. Clarke didn’t share her enthusiasm, not when she had to wait 15 minutes for her friend to get out of the house, late as usual. She didn’t know why she kept on being on time, when Octavia believed that time was a social construct. “Oh, thank you,” she said as soon as she saw the cup of coffee Clarke got her. 

“It’s probably cold by now,” Clarke muttered.

“Oh c’mon Clarke, we’re going to be early anyway,” she said and took the first sip, and Clarke waited expectantly for her reaction. “Still hot, thanks,” Octavia commented, kissing her friend’s cheek next. 

They arrived at school a couple of minutes earlier, as predicted. Monty and Jasper were already in homeroom, early as always, on the only day in the year they wouldn’t be discussing or doing homework. They sat next to them, and nothing much felt different for Clarke - maybe because she saw most of her friends throughout the summer holidays, maybe because school was just the same as when they left it, but she didn’t feel as if this was going to be the beginning of their last year there. Jasper pining over Octavia, Monty was talking about his application for MIT like they both did since the first day of high school, if not before. Raven and Harper joined them a few minutes later, and Octavia shot a look at Clarke to say, see, we’re not the last one to arrive. Their group had gone through a series of changes through the years, there was Wells who had to leave town because of his dad’s political career, Fox who moved to Australia halfway through sophomore year and Raven was the last person to join their group, when she moved to their little town the summer before freshman year. She became Jasper’s lab partner because the teacher couldn’t stand him and Monty being next to each other, and so he put the new girl next to him. Clarke couldn’t thank that teacher and Jasper and Monty’s inability to stay silent for more than two minutes when they were near each other enough. 

“Are you guys coming over later? We better enjoy the pool before summer ends,” Octavia asked, as she unceremoniously dropped her lunch tray on the table, sitting right next to Clarke. She wasn’t always sitting with the cheerleading squad, unlike Bellamy had suggested when she was first selected, at the beginning of Sophomore year. It was a rhetorical question, no one had anything else to do, not Clarke who had promised her mom to be home for dinner, certainly not Jasper and Monty who knew how to have fun and they could prove it, and Raven and Harper never said no to the Blakes’ pool. It took everyone a few minutes to answer, pretending they were actually wondering if they had other plans for the afternoon. It was in this moment that Clarke thought for the first time, that the next first day of school she was going to have it wasn’t going to be with this people, that Octavia wasn’t going to be there to ask her to come over, and it certainly wasn’t going to end at the Blakes’. It wasn’t the constant talk of graduation by the teachers, but the idea of the disruption of their routine. She looked around at her friends eating her lunch, sharing things that happened during their summer as if they didn’t see each other before school started, like they haven’t constantly kept in touch for the whole break, and she didn't want to ever leave the cafeteria. 

“Earth to Clarke,” Octavia snapped her out of her thoughts then, looking intently at her. “You have your sad, thoughtful face on. Has something happened?” And she would miss this, also. Knowing that someone knew everything about you, that you could never hide anything from them. 

“No, it’s just - I just realized this is it. The beginning of the end,” Clarke explained. 

“Clarke, we have like 9 months ahead of us, don’t get all sappy already,” Octavia protested, hitting her friend on her arm. 

“I know!” she cried “But we’ve known each other since 1st grade!” Clarke couldn’t believe she was getting emotional over lunch break. Octavia hugged her then, and Clarke hoped that wherever they ended up going, she could still feel her warmth through her texts. 

“We’ll stay friends anyway and besides, we will do group video calls all the time,” Monty pointed out. 

“Oh we won’t, Monty, not with you at least, you’ll be up in Boston studying 24/7, don’t lie,” Jasper commented, and everyone, including Clarke, nodded along, laughing. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! i'm back! i'll post chapter 3 in a few days, i was on vacation but now i'm back to work (which sadly isn't writing fics) and i'll be able to update more often.

By the time Clarke got home from her afternoon with her friends, Abby was already in the kitchen, cooking, a rare sight back at home. Her dad wasn’t back yet, but at least they were going to have dinner all together. That was another little tradition she was going to miss, her parents trying to be home as early as possible after her first day of school. They wouldn’t say anything, just listen to anything she had to say - new students, new teachers, a stupid new rule introduced by the principal, anything. Her dad arrived not long after, and they all had mac and cheese - it was what her mom cooked back when she was six, after her first day in 1st grade, and so that also became part of the tradition. Not to mention that Abby was a great surgeon, but the same couldn’t be said about her cooking skills, and so it was always mac and cheese. 

Clarke told them all about the first day, everything except that little thing about college that she was planning on telling them for a year now, but that she kept on pushing back. She could hear Octavia’s voice in her head “what are you going to do, get into art college and then pretend you’re going to Yale? Photoshop your pictures in front of the buildings?” It wasn’t a bad idea, after all. It wasn’t like they were going to check where the tuition money was going, right? Just when Clarke was starting to think that she could do it, that day, her mom started serving some ice cream and the college-talk-moment was now gone. She was constantly making up those excuses in her head, one day she was too tired to have a serious conversation, the next both her parents were home and there was a movie on tv they all wanted to watch. And then, to further take her away from the moment, she got a text from a group chat now long forgotten, one they made a few years back - she couldn’t even remember why they had it in the first place. The last interaction was a video Octavia and Clarke sent for Bellamy’s 18th birthday some months earlier, because he had decided to go to New York with a few friends that day. 

_ Had a great first day back girls? Unlike you, I’m enjoying my newfound freedom because classes haven’t officially started yet _ , followed by a selfie of Bellamy lying on his bed, a ridiculous smirk on his face. 

_ As if you were kept in a cage here, _ was Octavia’s prompt response. It took a while for Clarke to respond, because that was the first interaction they had since the party. Not that she was expecting him to suddenly bond with her, sending Clarke daily updates on his new life. But it was weird anyway, the fact that he wasn’t there when she went to their house, or at school. 

_ That’s his way to say that he misses us already, O,  _ Clarke wrote then, unable to come up with a better remark. 

_ Nah I’m glad there’s no one around spilling my dirty secrets from the diaper days.  _ Clarke chuckled out loud. No one there knew that Bellamy Blake couldn’t eat his ice cream on a cone until he was 13. Not that stopped him from becoming Prom King for two years in a row, anyway. And with two different girls, so they sure didn’t mind about his  _ dark  _ past. Clarke’s dad asked then if she wanted to watch a movie with them on tv, and she left her phone on the kitchen table, ignoring any future reply from the Blake siblings, enjoying her parents’ presence at home for once. 

*

The first month back went by relatively smooth, they all started to be loaded with homework, they said goodbye to the Blakes’ pool once again as the weather started to get colder, and they got back to their winter tradition, which meant going at least twice a week to their favourite coffee shop, a small, quiet place not far from school, and relatively far enough from their homes so they wouldn't end up meeting their parents. 

They knew all the baristas, and anytime a new one showed up, they would - well, Jasper would, mostly- interrogate them as if they were the owners of the place. That is, until Lincoln came along. No one dared to ask Lincoln anything more than their coffee orders, and they knew his name only because he had the tag with it written on pinned on his shirt. They knew he made the best lattes in town, and that was, after all, everything they needed from their baristas, but they were all noisy kids who wanted to know more. They started speculating that he was a serial killer on the run with a fake name, who decided to work in a coffee shop so no one could suspect him. The week earlier Jasper asked him, point-blank, so are you a fugitive? and Lincoln laughed, the first time Clarke had seen him actually laughing since they first met him. They were all intrigued, but Clarke couldn’t help but notice that Octavia was starting to spend a bit too much time lingering on Lincoln. That day in particular Clarke was following her friend’s gaze, trying to confirm her suspicion. 

“What?” Octavia said when she noticed Clarke staring at her a bit too intently. 

“Nothing,” she answered, shrugging. 

“So you’re just staring at me because of my staggering beauty?” 

“Yeah, that’s exactly it.” 

“Clarke.” She was trying to come back with a clever answer when both their phones buzzed on the table. 

“Who’s writing to the both of you? I thought we’re all the friends you guys have in common,” Monty pointed out. He wasn’t wrong, Clarke didn’t have many friends other than them anyway and Octavia’s other friends were the girls from the cheer squad. 

“Since my brother left he became all… brotherly. It’s so weird,” Octavia answered, as she read Bellamy’s text. He was always sending random photos he took while he did the most mundane things, just to show them  _ how cool the LA life was _ (his words). 

“I know right? Can’t wait for him to be back and hate him again,” Clarke commented, and the whole staring contest argument died down. Not that Clarke forgot about it in the next few days, but she didn’t want to come too aggressively at Octavia about it. Her ex-boyfriend had cheated on her multiple times, and Clarke was sure that telling her that Lincoln didn’t seem a good idea was only going to draw her further to him. And she wasn’t exactly someone people could take as a role model when it came to relationships either, the three relationships she had before ended up in disaster. She wasn’t going to lecture Octavia about the mysterious barista. 

It was on that day, while she was driving back home, that she realized that she had to do it. Maybe it was Bellamy’s dumb texts about the Cali life, maybe it was the weather that was getting colder, reminding her that she didn’t have a lot of time to submit her applications. She wrote to Octavia as soon as she parked,  _ I’m going to tell them tonight!  _

It took her a whole year to do it. They were having dinner, and Clarke was silent, rehearsing her speech in her head. She had done it in front of the mirror a thousand times before, even with her friends once, with Jasper shouting obscenities at her, “you have to get ready for the worst,” he had explained. Clarke could anticipate their answers, after all they were an engineer and a doctor, both out of Yale, and they weren’t expecting to have a daughter who wanted to rebel and be an artist, a total cliché. She knew that her dad liked to draw too when he was younger, he told her much. But Clarke was sure he couldn’t accept the idea of her daughter wanting to make a career out of it. Instead, when she started talking, she could see that Jake didn’t look as surprised or disappointed as she thought he would. Clarke talked and talked and couldn’t stop, explaining to them why drawing made her feel good like anything else in her life, that she liked to study everything, sure, but nothing made her feel as fulfilled as her art. Clarke’s dad nodded, took her hands in his. Said he loved her and that of course, of course, he was going to support her on her choice. 

Abby, on the other hand, looked at her, not saying anything for a while, her lips pursed. It was probably just a minute, maybe less, but Clarke’s heart was racing fast and her mind was formulating one thousand thoughts every second, and to her, that minute felt hours long. Then she finally spoke. 

“I - I don’t know what to say, Clarke,” she said. “I love your art and all but - your whole life based on it? Do you know how many people actually make a living out of it?” 

“Abby,” her dad started to say, but Clarke didn’t hear the rest of it because she was already in her bedroom. Of course, she had to see it coming. Abby was never going to accept it, the idea that her daughter could be anything less than an Ivy League graduate. She had already texted Octavia when someone knocked on her door. She hoped it was Abby, but of course, it wasn’t. It was Jake, asking her if she wanted to talk. 

“Of course,” she said, and he came in, immediately sitting on her bed next to Clarke. He smiled sympathetically, stroking his daughter’s back. It didn’t help release the tension, but she was glad that at least one of her parents was on her side. 

“Listen, she was taken aback. I’m sure she’ll come around,” he said. Clarke scoffed. 

“You weren’t expecting it too, dad. It’s not fair that -” with his free hand Jake squeezed his daughter’s, and she forgot was she was about to say. Her dad’s affection in such a delicate moment of her life meant everything to Clarke, but she didn’t want to tear up in front of him, so she sighed, trying to hold the tears back. 

“In the meantime, I don’t think a little trip to California would hurt you, right? Isn’t Bellamy studying down there?” He said, winking. 

“Dad - I’m not - I’m not doing this behind mom’s back.” 

“You know Bellamy’s school, UCLA? It has a great scientific program, Clarke. Not everything has to be about art,” he pointed out and before he could leave, she hugged him tight. 

“I told you,” Octavia told her over the phone when Clarke gave her the news later that night. “You could’ve told them one year ago and you wouldn’t have to study that much for your SATs.” 

“O, it’s not like I’m already enrolled. And my mom hates the idea, she’s probably going to call the school to beg them not to admit me. I would have studied for the SATs anyway,” she pointed out. 

“Is there a good school in New York? Or are you still obsessed with that Californian school?” Clarke sighed. She was still obsessed with it. She had seen a brochure going around school in her freshman year, and she hadn’t stopped thinking about it since. 

“My dad actually told me I could go visit, like an early Christmas present. Do you think I could ask Bell, maybe he knows someone who has a free couch or it’d be too much trouble?” She asked, still amazed that her dad would let her go to the other side of the country, while also lying to her mom. Even if she wasn’t going to get in, having a secret plan with her dad made her kind of excited. 

“I’m sure it won’t be, call him immediately.” 

“I still haven’t checked the flights, give me a minute. And why don’t you come too? We can go away for a couple of days, get some Vitamin D and come back.” 

“Come and see my brother before Thanksgiving? Ugh, no thanks,” Octavia said, and quickly added, “I wish, but you know mom’s going to kill me if I miss school with no real reason and with cheer practice…” 

“Right. Didn’t think about the implication of going to the other side of the country and miss school. Okay, going to check the flights and call Bellamy then.”

“Never thought I’d hear you say the words  _ I’ll call Bellamy, _ but yeah, let me know when you’re going.” 

Her dad was already asleep, but she could talk with Bellamy first. Maybe he was going to tell her he couldn’t ruin his reputation by showing his sister’s best friend around. She was ridiculously nervous as she called him, but when she told him about it, he sounded  _ happy _ . 

“CalArts? I have a couple of friends there, we can find a couch you could crash on.” Bellamy sounded if not drunk, tipsy, but she didn’t mind because she liked that he wasn’t wasting her time by doing their usual spiel of snarky remarks. “I’m going to write them. But in the meantime just book your flight, you won’t sleep on the street in any case,” he assured her, and so the next day she did book the flight. 

“Which is the first Halloween you remember?” Clarke asked Octavia as they were getting dressed for the party Jasper organized. They would usually do it at the Blakes, but this year without Bellamy Octavia had no desire to organize a party on her own. 

Jasper even made some nice cards, just like their elementary school years, and wrote: “remember that this is our last Halloween together so if you don’t show or if you do with no costume you’re an asshole.” Clarke almost teared up because of the damn card. She wasn’t going to survive her graduation if she was already so overwhelmed by every single thing that happened at the end of October. 

“Uhm, I think when we were 5? Or 6? No, 5 because it was only the three of us and I think Miller was with us. We didn’t know the others yet,” Octavia answered. 

“That’s the first one I remember too. I remember Bellamy and Miller acting as if they were our bodyguards although they were only 6 and my mom was watching us closely anyway.” Octavia laughed at the memory, as she was trying to get into her costume. They stopped being original with their Halloween clothes back in middle school, if not earlier, so they simply decided to be bloody nurses by gently asking (and by gently Clarke meant by sending her 20 texts a day to remind her to do that) to get some old, unused nurse vests from the hospital she worked at. She even got them a couple of unopened, big syringes (minus the needle) that they filled with a disgusting liquid they created in the kitchen that resembled blood. 

This happened before the whole college debacle - their conversations were now stripped to the bare minimum,  _ do you want pizza for dinner, is it okay if i stay over at Octavia’s _ , and their meals together at home were always incredibly tense. Clarke was sure that, despite the booked flights, Abby was going to find a way not to let her go to California, so she tried to be on her best behavior, and until now everything was going well. She hoped her dad could talk some sense into her before it, maybe even let them join her on the trip, although she knew how hard it was for both of them to get even a single day off work. 

“Can’t believe we made our moms spend tons of money on our costumes back then and now we can’t even be bothered to buy some cheap costumes from the store downtown,” Octavia commented as she looked at the reflection in the mirror, and Clarke thought that, despite the low effort, they didn’t look half as bad. 

“I know. My mom still has all those princess costumes somewhere. Said that I was going to save some money in case I’ll have a daughter one day.” 

“Ugh, kids. Can you imagine us going around a house chasing kids like our moms did?” 

“I know, if I end up having siblings like you and Bellamy I’d probably give them up for adoption,” Clarke joked. They were both ready by then, they took a couple of pictures to send to the asshole down in California (Clarke’s words) and then they were out, ready to splash some fake blood at Jasper’s face as soon as he opened the door of his house. 

It was a great night, Clarke reasoned as she was getting back home later that night, although the words on Jasper’s card kept on resonating into her head - our last Halloween together. She knew their quirks, their habits, they could anticipate each other’s sentences. The truth was, Clarke was ready to leave town, but she didn’t want to do it without them. But maybe Bellamy was right when he told them about the perks of no one knowing anything about your past. Not that she had a dark past or anything, but anyone in a small town ends up growing with a label attached to them. 

But at the same time, she knew it was going to be hard without all of them. She had a hard time even without Bellamy around. She realized that night, for the first time, a night they would all spend together since she literally could remember, that he wasn’t around. She wanted to make fun of his costume, she wanted to throw the fake blood at him and get scared by him like he always did with her and Octavia, hiding behind doors and in dark rooms of the house, although recently it was mostly for show. 

If she had a hard time living without Bellamy Blake, how could she think of living without all the people she cared about the most? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm on tumblr @ sallysimpsons , in case you want to rant about bellarke with me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke flies to LA

Clarke’s relationship with her mom didn’t seem to get any better, and even on the day she left for Los Angeles, Abby came with her daughter and her husband to the airport, and Clarke could see that she was doing a big effort to have a positive attitude towards her trip. She kept on saying how great UCLA scientific program was, even if Clarke was sure that Abby knew that her daughter was going to visit another school. The atmosphere was tense during the whole car ride, and her mom softened up a bit only when they reached the airport. 

Despite going on multiple vacations without them, the idea that their daughter was going on a plane all on her own was making them worry quite a lot. They hugged her as if she was being deployed. 

“You know I’m going to go visit  _ campus  _ and then there’s Bellamy who’s going to be, like, my shadow and won’t let me get lost in the big city.”

“That’s what I’m most worried about,” her dad said. 

“You were the one that had the whole idea, remember?” Clarke pointed out.

She wasn’t completely aware of the fact that she was going to spend time  _ alone  _ with Bellamy Blake for the first time in her whole life until she saw him waiting for her at the airport. He had a huge grin on his face, and Clarke’s first thought was that he looked so different. More at ease, maybe. Or maybe he was replaced by another person entirely, because as soon as she came closer to him, Bellamy hugged her. Clarke stood still, unsure of how to respond to that simple gesture, yet so unknown to them. He retreated before she could return the hug, and they stood there awkwardly. 

“So, uhm, welcome to LA, Clarke Griffin,” he said. 

“Thank you, Bellamy Blake,” she said back.

“Your parents called me twice already, so please inform them that you’re alive.” She laughed, showing him the text she had written her mom just before they met. “Okay, crisis averted. We can go now.” And so he led the way back to his car. Bellamy had driven it all the way from Jersey to California with Miller, who was also studying somewhere down south. Was she going to do the same, Clarke asked herself before realizing that she hadn’t even sent in her application yet. 

“So, I’m warning you. I’m still into that  _ emo shit _ ,” he said, turning on the radio. 

“I can’t believe you still remember that.” 

“I tend to remember the hurtful things people tell me, yeah. Don’t think you’re special,” he said. She recognized the band that was playing the song, singing about some dead friend. Bellamy had a weird way of welcoming her into town. 

“Listen, I don’t hate emo music. I also listen to it. But you spent a whole month listening to American Football at full volume, and we had to study.” Clarke and Octavia were studying for their finals, and Bellamy never went out of his room, always playing the same record,  _ not to be overly dramatic, I just think it’s best, ‘cause you can’t miss what you forget _ . She couldn’t forget the lyrics. She even stormed into Bellamy’s room, told him to stop blasting that emo shit all the time. 

“I was going through a hard time. I have a big, fragile heart, unlike you,” he looked at her, flashed Clarke a smile. She was starting to regret the choice of asking him for help already. Damn Jake Griffin and his crazy ideas. 

And so Bellamy drove directly to CalArts, stopping only once for gas and a coffee. He was surprised by Clarke’s actual knowledge of his emo playlist, and so they sang, and talked, and reminisced. He was going to do the tour with her, he said, as they approached campus. 

“Do I have a choice?” She asked. She could easily predict his answer. 

“Not if you want to have to wait for the bus to get back in town.” 

“I don’t mind, actually, if it means I don’t have to see you for a couple of hours.” Bellamy finally found an empty parking spot. 

“Stop it, admit it you chose this school because it was close to mine and you couldn’t wait to finally spend some time alone with me.” Clarke rolled her eyes, got off the car. Bellamy didn’t move, hands still on the steering wheel, so she walked to his side, looked at him through the closed window. 

“Get off this car and stop being such an ass.” 

“Okay. Kind of love when you get bossy, have I ever told you that?” She shot him a look. “I’m still inside the car, so I can be an ass until I don’t get off, right?” 

“I’m taking the bus, then,” Clarke said, and walked away. She wrote a text to Octavia, _ I’m not sure I can handle your brother without you.  _

The tour went well, maybe because Clarke barely noticed Bellamy’s presence as they were shown around campus with a bunch of other people. Maybe it was because she was too busy taking everything in, maybe because he was acting nice and not saying much except pointing out random places like,  _ oh I remember drinking from the water fountain when I came to visit my friend last time _ . She hoped it wasn’t going to live the expectations of her 14-year-old self who checked their website for the first time, so she wasn’t going to feel too bad when she was going to get her rejection letter. Instead, she got out of campus more excited than when she got in. She felt as if it was the perfect place for her, where she was finally going to fit in. 

“I take you have enjoyed the tour?” Bellamy asked, smiling, as they were walking to the cafeteria. He had managed to get ahold of a couple of friends of his - she had no idea how he could make friends so easily anywhere - to get a coffee with them before driving back to town, tell her a bit about their real experience at school. 

“Nah, not really. Probably canceling everything I’ve already prepared for my application as soon as I get back home. I hate this place.” He raised an eyebrow. “Listen, I’m trying to convince myself in case I don’t get in.” 

“We’ll need to listen to something a bit more cheerful on the way back because your emo mood is not what we need right now. You’re getting in, Clarke.” 

“Can’t believe even the grumpy Blake is supporting me," she said.

"Who said I'm the grumpy Blake?" he asked. 

"I think it was Jasper? I don't know, it's something that we used to say in our group." 

"You nerds," he said, a playful tone in his voice, as he held the door of the cafeteria open, gesturing for her to get in. "I'm sure Octavia never opened any door for you," was the last dumb thing he said before greeting his friends and pretending to be an actual adult for an hour. 

"Now that we talked with them I'm going to be even more crushed if I won't make it." They were back in the car and Bellamy was fiddling with his phone, no doubt looking for some happy evening!!! Playlist. 

"All the happy playlists on here have a different variation of a Spanish summer song, I don't think that's going to put us in a good mood," he grunted, ignoring her negative remark. He finally pressed play then, looked up at her. "I'm now going to ignore any negative comments coming from you, by the way." 

"About college or like, in general? Because if you mean in general, I'm afraid I'm going to have to speak with myself for the rest of the day." 

"We're going to meet Miller now, so you can talk to him," he said, turning on the ignition. 

“I saw he has a boyfriend,” Clarke commented. 

“He does. How do you know?” Bellamy asked, sincerely confused. 

“You know, Instagram. He’s constantly posting pictures with this guy. At first, I thought he looked happy because he wasn’t hanging out with you all the time, but it turned out it was because of the boyfriend.” 

“Right, maybe I should give up and get myself one.” 

“A boyfriend or an Instagram account?” She asked, and Bellamy shook his head in response, not looking at her now that he was busy driving. “You should. I know where Miller and Murphy are all the time, but you? I only get those ugly photos you send me and Octavia.” 

“First of all, they’re not ugly. And second, you should feel blessed because those pictures are reserved only to a few, elected people. Not like your Instagram photos shared with like two thousand followers.” 

“You can have a private profile, just for your few, elected people,” she mocked him, then did a double-take “Wait, how do you know how many people follow me?” 

“I looked for O once and also found you,” he explained. 

“Do you have a secret account and you check our stories from there?” 

“I don’t! I just look at the pictures and drawings you post from my browser. But if you tell me that the stories are more interesting, I could do that. Great idea, Clarke,” he said. She was amused because he talked like a grandpa who barely knew how to turn his phone on. Clarke remembered when he had a Facebook account that he closed, and his last message was something along the lines of “I’m too busy living my real life to spend it on here like you guys!”, got tons of comments from people at school who weren’t his friends but wanted to be close to him, and some days later his account was gone. Clarke and Octavia teased him for months after, anytime he was home they would ask him, is that how you live your real life? 

“Stories are where most people are posting their content now. So, like, if you only looked at pictures of Miller - you wouldn’t really know he had a boyfriend, right?” 

“Right.” He sighed, pulled up his phone and handed it to Clarke. “Set me an account up, I don’t want you to post weird stories in which you make fun of me while I’m like, passed out drunk somewhere tonight.” She giggled and downloaded the app on his phone. 

They met Miller for a cup of coffee, and sure enough, the guy didn’t lose the occasion to mention that yes, he had a boyfriend, he was in pre-med, and so they talked about big life decisions, Clarke’s choice, and theirs. Miller still wasn’t sure what to do, while Bellamy stated, with full certainty, that he was going to major in philosophy. 

“Really? Philosophy?” Clarke was baffled. She knew he was obsessed with  _ history _ , especially with the ancient Greeks and Romans, so it came as a surprise that he would choose philosophy until she remembered that, after all, they didn’t know each other that well if not through Octavia. 

“Easy there, future  _ art college student _ ,” he said, an emphasis on the words art college. 

“You’re not wrong. Can’t wait to work with you at some fast food joint.” 

“Weird to see you guys have, like, a normal conversation. For your standards, I mean. What happened since we left for college?” Miller asked, curious. Their coffee mugs were almost empty by then, someone was protesting to one the baristas, something about the wrong milk used in her latte. 

“Nothing much, I’m just trying to be nice since he’s driving me around. By Thanksgiving, I swear we’ll be back to normal.” 

“Good to hear, because it’s kind of weird to sit here talking about the future with you two not throwing things at each other.”

“I think we stopped doing that in second grade,” Bellamy commented, serious as if the actual timeline mattered somehow. 

“Not really, man, don’t you remember that Halloween her and Octavia started throwing candies at you because you made some dumb comments about their costumes?”

“Oh god. Between the two of you, I don’t know who likes to make me feel worse with the childhoodmemories.” Despite Bellamy’s protests the conversation veered dramatically towards memories of old times, a compilation of embarrassing moments, Bellamy being, of course, their favorite victim - both moments in which the other one wasn’t present, and some melancholic ones, like that time when they all went to the Blakes' to bake Christmas cookies. Clarke never understood how Aurora agreed so many times to take care of so many children that weren’t hers, especially when she had to be around children all day, due to her job. You would think she’d have enough of them, but here she was, always, welcoming all of them in her house. 

“Do you think we should go?” Bellamy asked then when all of their mugs were empty and the light outside was getting dimmer. Clarke had lost track of time, what with the early trip and the different time zone. It was past dinner time back home. 

“Go where?” She had no idea where she was going to sleep that night. Bellamy didn’t mention anything and she forgot to ask. 

“I’ve got a couple of friends who live off-campus, they have a spare room so you can crash there,” Bellamy explained. “Are you coming too, Miller? We’re having pizza, drink a couple of beers.” 

“Nah, I have early classes tomorrow and you know how long it takes from there to my campus. I better head back now,” Miller said, put his jacket on and then looked at Clarke, “it was nice seeing you again. Kind of miss home, you know?” She nodded. She knew exactly what he meant and she hadn’t even left yet.

“Miller mentioned classes,” Clarke said, when they were back in the car, driving outside of town. 

“Yeah, what about them?” 

“You don’t, like, go to yours?” She asked. 

“I do, usually. But you were coming so I took the day off. And tomorrow you’re leaving early enough for me to go to my afternoon classes,” Bellamy explained. “So, how is my Instagram doing? I posted a story of our coffees, I hope I’ve done it right,” he asked then, handling his phone back to Clarke. Octavia had already answered to it,  _ i can’t believe you two are hanging out with miller, what is this, a parallel universe? are you cutting me out? assholes <3  _

“You’re way more popular than me. I added all your contacts and a lot already followed you back.” 

“Wait, you followed all the people in my contacts?” Bellamy asked, worried. “All of them?” 

“I don’t know, those who have their phone numbers connected to the app. I’m sure it’s not _ all of them _ .” 

“Didn’t you kind of think that I could have people in there I don’t want to talk to? Like ex-girlfriends?” 

“Oh, god. I’m sorry,” she started to laugh then. “Ok, I’m really sorry.” 

“It’s not funny, Clarke!” He cried at first, but then he started to laugh along with her, and they weren’t able to stop for a while. 

Bellamy’s friends’ house was a beautiful place not far away from campus. This guy named Roan, who was in his senior year now, had rich parents and they bought him the house when he started college. He rented the rooms to other students, and one of them, a girl named Luna, shared several classes with Bellamy. 

“We only come here because Roan is over 21 and he can buy alcohol for everyone,” Bellamy explained, but Clarke could tell that he really cared about those people, as different as they seemed from the crowd he hung out with back home. Or maybe they weren’t different, they were simply older, and Clarke was in awe of the way they welcomed here immediately, how Roan showed her room as if they’ve known each other forever. 

“Most of us don’t have early classes tomorrow so we’ll stay up until late, but you go to bed whenever if you feel like it, I know how it feels like to travel from east to west coast, jet lag and all.” 

“Oh, you’re also from the west coast?” Clarke asked, taking her backpack off and putting it on the bed. 

“Yeah, up in Maine. You know, I wanted to get as far away as possible,” Roan explained. “Unlike your friend Bellamy, he seems super nostalgic of his hometown, I have no idea why he moved down here. He loves his sister quite a lot, doesn’t he?” 

“Yeah, they love each other a lot,” Clarke answered, smiling. Bellamy wouldn’t have shown his vulnerabilities like that earlier, everyone who was close to them could tell how much Bellamy and Octavia loved each other, but for many years he acted as if he was above any kind of feelings for his family. The change of scenery had done him good. 

“Ok so, I’ll leave you alone, we’ll wait for you downstairs.” 

“Thank you, Roan.”

“Oh don’t even think about it. The friends of my friends are always welcomed here. We’re a big family.” He left then, and Clarke was alone, thinking that it was the first time in her life that someone had thought of her as a friend of Bellamy. 

The pizza they ordered arrived just as Clarke was coming downstairs and hanging up on her parents, who were about to go to sleep. She assured them that she was going to sleep in a room all by herself, no they were all normal people, yes she knew drugs were dangerous, and yes she remembered her plane was leaving at 3 pm the next day, thank you. All of a sudden they had forgotten that their daughter was almost 18 and not a child at camp. They ate, drank a few beers, and when Bellamy announced he was going back to campus before it was too late, Luna took a bottle of rum out of a cupboard. 

“You’re not going anywhere because we’re making mojitos now,” she announced, and everyone protested - but Clarke was pretty sure that was just a show “not again, Luna” “can’t we take some vodka, make something else for once?”, but in the end they all helped make the cocktails. And so by the time the bottle was empty, the glasses refilled and emptied again, Bellamy announced he wasn’t going anywhere because he couldn’t drive in that state. No one seemed particularly surprised by the announcement, it couldn’t be the first time that it happened. 

“I don’t know why you make your parents pay for your room on campus if you’re always staying here,” Luna said, and despite her state, Clarke could see Bellamy’s jaw briefly twitching. 

“My dad’s paying for it,” he said. Everyone was waiting for some kind of explanation to the statement, but they understood that it was not something he enjoyed talking about. Everyone was waiting for someone to finally say something to lighten up the atmosphere, and just when Clarke was about to change the subject, ask them something, Bellamy said “I need some fresh air” and went out of the room, out in the backyard. 

“Sorry, I’m going to check on him,” Clarke said then, everyone nodded. She got up, head-spinning, and stumbled out of the room. Roan had luckily shown her around the house earlier so she knew where to go. He sat on the steps that led to a small backyard garden, looking at a non-specified point in front of him. 

“If you want, I can leave,” she said, leaning on the wall, still not daring to go outside. 

“No, just - sit here.” And so she did, carefully, trying not to stumble. Space was limited, their legs touching. “Meeting in backyards of people’s houses while we’re drunk, is this going to be our thing?” He said, half smiling. She smiled back, knowing now that he remembered the conversation they had back in August. 

“I wasn’t that drunk, back then. I am now.” 

“Sorry for making a scene there. You know -” 

“Yeah, I know. Your dad’s an asshole,” she said, then stopped herself. “Oh, god. Sorry. Didn’t mean to say that.” 

“No, you meant it. And that’s also my same thought, so. Don’t be sorry. He is an asshole. And one of the reasons I moved here.” 

“Why?” She asked. The official reason was that he wasn’t accepted anywhere else. 

“You know how he agreed to pay for our tuition, but still, I thought that wasn’t enough. So I came down here and he had to agree to pay for my flights anytime I want to go back. If I went to, say, New York or Boston it was going to be too cheap.” 

“Well, that’s -”

“Fucked up? I know. But I truly like it here. And Miller had already chosen his school, so I thought, two birds with one stone, right?” 

“Right,” she agreed. “So you were actually accepted somewhere else.” 

“Of course I was. Who do you think I am, Murphy? I was accepted almost everywhere!” He wanted to sound offended but he only made Clarke laugh. "only O knows," he added then, deadly serious. Clarke nodded, put her head on Bellamy's shoulder. 

"Sorry, head's heavy," she said, closed her eyes. "since we're confessing things here, uh, you know the whole emo shit thing?" 

"I'm drunk but I can still remember a conversation we had earlier  _ today _ , Clarke." 

"Sure, right, well, I was also heartbroken, at the time. That's why I took it out on you. And, uhm, sorry? I'm 2 years too late for that but you're driving me around and giving me free food and alcohol, so. Sorry for being so mean.” 

"Appreciate it anyway. But don't get used to the treatment, okay?" he said, and put an arm around Clarke's shoulder. They stayed quiet like this for a while, and she felt at peace like she hadn't felt in a long time. 

When she woke up the next morning, Clarke didn't feel at peace. Not even remotely. Her head was throbbing and she was in a room she didn't recognize at first, then she remembered she was in California, in a stranger's house who gave her a whole room to herself, and she got drunk with said stranger and his friends and Bellamy. It was ten in the morning, way, way too late back home and she was sure she was going to find 10 missed calls from her parents. 

"I had 5 missed calls from my parents," she said when she finally managed to get up and go downstairs. Bellamy was in the kitchen, fidgeting with the coffee machine, and turned to look at her. 

"Good morning. Only 5 times because they started calling me and I answered," he explained. “I assured them we didn’t do any crack, you were just tired.” 

"oh, okay. Thanks. I will hire you as my secretary when I'm a famous artist and you're a starving philosopher." she plopped down on the closest chair, unable to stay on her feet any longer. She sent a text to her mom, saying everything was fine, she overslept because they talked until late. 

“Thank you. I would do the same if it was the other way around,” he said as he took two mugs from the cupboard in front of him. Clarke could tell he was already familiar with the place, he found the mugs immediately, loved the feeling of familiarity that came with the gesture. 

“It’s going to be a mess if both of us end up being starving artists, isn’t it?” Clarke pointed out, and he gave a bitter laugh. 

“Indeed.” She looked at him as he poured the coffee in the mugs, then thanked him when he put them on the table. “Milk?” 

“No, thanks,” she answered. “But some aspirin would be nice. I have some in my bag but I don’t think I’ll be able to get back upstairs anytime soon.” She sipped her coffee, trying to act casual. She probably wouldn’t have dared to ask this to Bellamy a day prior, but here she was, undoubtedly asking for his help, once again.

“Is that a way to tell me I should bring your bag downstairs?” He asked, raising his right eyebrow. 

“Yeah, pretty much.” He shook his head but got up and left the room. Clarke looked at her phone screen to check if there were any new messages, but there was only a reminder of her flight. In six hours she was going to be on her plane, going back home, and she wasn’t feeling relieved as she thought she was going to be. 

The original plan was to walk around downtown LA before going back to the airport, but Clarke wasn’t in the mood for touristic activities. It was a beautiful day, and so Bellamy decided to take her to the seaside, stole two beach towels from Roan’s house and they left, while everyone was still asleep. They bought sandwiches in a place Bellamy assured made the best sandwiches in the world - Clarke wasn’t in the mood to point out that he never went outside the US. Or maybe he went to Mexico once? Either way, the medicine helped with her headache but she still wasn’t at full capacity. She was grateful for the sea breeze and the noise of the waves crashing, and before she knew it Clarke was sleeping again. 

“Thanks for the company, Sleeping Beauty,” Bellamy said, once she finally opened her eyes. 

“Oh, god. Sorry. How long did I sleep?” 

“Just an hour, don’t worry. I always carry a book with me anyway. And I had the time to take a nice picture to post on my Instagram.” 

“Let me check then,” she said, taking her phone out of her bag. She had 10 unread messages but she ignored them, opened Instagram. Bellamy had taken a beautiful picture of the beach, with the hashtags #ivegotterriblecompany #mightaswellpostmyfirstpicture. She groaned but liked the picture anyway. 

“Can we eat now? I was waiting for you to wake up and I’m hungry now.” She nodded and slowly got up. He took the two sandwiches out of the paper bag and handed one to Clarke. They ate in silence, and she soaked in all of it, the smell of the sea, all the noises, even the sand that ended up in her sandwich thanks to the wind. 

Later on, Bellamy drove Clarke back to the airport. This time, she was the one to hug him and he didn’t hold back. She thanked him before letting go, ready to go through controls and to her gate. 

“So, uhm, again, thanks. Do I owe you anything for gas? It’s the least I could do.”

“Don’t even think about it. You’re family,” Bellamy said, matter-of-factly. She nodded, realized how stupid she must’ve been because she had never thought of him that way, and said goodbye. 

“See you at Thanksgiving,” he shouted before she got into the line. She waved at him, and he left. The word family echoed in her head after she boarded her plane, up until she fell asleep, exhausted. 

When Clarke arrived back home, she wasn’t expecting to feel the way she did when she saw the familiar streets of her small town, when she back in her bed, thankful for the different timezone so she could go back to sleep immediately. A yearning for something different, for something more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my favorite chapter to write so far, so I hope you enjoyed it too :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I was telling Clarke how cute it is that you’re not insulting each other all the time anymore.” He nodded and pushed the play button, the movie finally resuming.
> 
> “It’s just a truce, for the holidays, you know,” Bellamy said then, although he didn’t sound as convinced as he wanted to be.

_ B: Hey, C, I can see from your ig stories that you’re missing California already. So I made you a playlist.  _

_ C: Nice. Thanks, B. :)  _

_ C: Be a little more original next time, tho, first track is California Dreamin? For real?  _

*

The next two weeks flew by, Thanksgiving only a day away. Deadlines were getting closer, the college talk was getting louder and everyone seemed to be wanting to go at a different corner of the States. Clarke was at the coffee shop writing college essays with Raven - she was perfect company for that kind of task because she wasn’t going to distract her, she would even take Clarke’s phone, turn it off, and put it in her own bag. After all this was how Clarke had managed to get a decent score in math during her high school years. She wouldn’t have changed Raven with anyone. Her phone vibrated and she checked it briefly under the table, just in case. It was Octavia:  _ got the asshole back from the airport. pic will follow as soon as said asshole deems himself to look good enough for one (as if).  _

She was supposed to go with her best friend and Aurora, but she was still so behind with her college applications that every extra hour she could get working on them couldn’t be wasted. 

“Who’s that?” Raven asked. Of course hiding the phone under the table couldn’t work, she wasn’t in class, hiding in the last row, where the teacher couldn’t see, 

“Octavia and Bellamy coming back from the airport.” Raven had that knowing look of hers, and Clarke simply looked back at her, puzzled. 

“Go back to your essays,” she said, simply. The phone buzzed again, this time it was the picture of the two of them. They both had wide smiles, Bellamy looking slightly tired because of the flight, but Clarke could see his genuine happiness. She was smiling back at her phone like an idiot, and she didn’t realize it until Raven snapped her fingers in front of her face. “Clarke! Airplane mode!” she commanded, and Clarke reluctantly followed the order. 

When she got it out when they were finally done, she had a thousand texts from Octavia and a couple from her parents telling her they were both off work at a decent hour. Clarke was surprised by her mom’s happy text - she could see that the situation was loosening it up a bit, but a text with a heart emoji at the end? Unprecedented. Maybe she was happy that her daughter was with Raven, a future mechanical engineer, that would for sure convince her in changing her idea. Clarke simply sent her a heart emoji too, and went back to her conversation with Octavia, who was telling her to come over because she couldn’t stand Bellamy on her own for more than a couple of hours. 

“Are you that desperate?” She asked as soon as Octavia picked up. 

“Of course I am. No but really, he’s the one asking for you to come over.” Clarke thought about her parents back home for dinner, about her mom sending her a heart emoji. Then she heard Bellamy protesting in the background _ I haven’t asked for shit! _ and Clarke said that yes, of course, she was going to be there in five. 

He was the one to open the door. Bellamy still had that huge, goofy smile on his face as the one he had in the picture, hair wild, longer than when they saw each other in Los Angeles, it was almost reaching his eyes. He hugged her, briefly, and let her in. 

“Welcome back, Bell,” she said, smiling. 

“Thanks, Clarke. Mom’s out with a… friend,” he explained, the judging tone he reserved for her mom’s and sister’s  _ friends _ , “so O actually volunteered to make pizza.” 

“I didn’t volunteer,” Octavia said, as soon as they entered the kitchen. “Poor Bell, he’s too tired after his long journey so I had to go out and buy the pizza dough while he was here doing absolutely nothing.”

“The perks of being at college.” 

“Yeah, so who’s going to do all of this when we’re both away next year?” She asked, curious of what he could come up with.

“Clearly, the person who has to take a longer journey will have to rest more,” Bellamy answered, knowing that Octavia was not going farther than New York. She had a can of tomatoes in her hand, and she pretended to throw her at her brother. He ducked, just in case she changed her mind and decided to go for it. When she put the sauce back on the counter Bellamy came back up, suddenly asking "so, how are you? " to Clarke, who was now near Octavia helping her with the pizza sauce and the toppings. 

"Fine, I guess. I can't wait to be done with these applications already." Bellamy mumbled something in agreement, as the girls put the huge pizza back in the oven. 

“So did you change your mind, you will go to UCLA and live the good life at Roan’s place?” He asked then, as Clarke was sitting on a chair next to him. 

“It has a good art program, so I’m not exactly ruling it out,” she answered. He looked taken aback, maybe not expecting her to have a serious answer to that. 

“I’m not approving of you guys going to the same college, though. So you have to rule it out, I’m sorry. I’m feeling left out here,” Octavia said, her hands dirty. 

“You should come too then,” Bellamy proposed, and from the look in Octavia’s eyes Clarke could tell it was a conversation they already had. She knew the gist of it, of course, her best friend didn’t want to leave their mom completely on her own, wanted to be able to drive or get on a bus and be home in a couple of hours, something that moving to California didn’t allow. Bellamy sighed, knowing well that Octavia’s point of view wasn’t wrong. The silence seemed to stretch out for too long. 

"I'll come visit," Octavia said eventually, "and you will teach me how to surf."

"You will probably be the one teaching me, O." 

"Bell is right, I can see you coming to LA and be like oh it's not that hard, and ride the waves like you've done it your whole life," Clarke said. 

"You two should stop drinking and start exercising, that's all I'm saying. It's actually not that hard." 

"it's actually not that hard," Bellamy repeated, mocking her sister. She threw the wet towel she was using to clean her hands at him, and this time he didn't duck in time. Clarke started to laugh, and didn't regret for one second that she didn't spend the night home with her parents. 

"There's something different about the two of you." they were on the couch a while later, watching a dumb comedy on Netflix, and Bellamy had gone to the bathroom. 

“Different? How?” Clarke asked.

“A good kind of different. Like you suddenly talk without insulting each other all the time,” Octavia answered. “Can’t believe it took you guys 18 years. If I knew that you only needed to spend a day without me I would’ve done it sooner.” 

“What would you have done sooner?” A voice asked from the corridor. 

“Minding my own business!” Octavia answered when her brother entered the room. He sat back on the armchair, the reclined one that was  _ his _ , despite him not being there anymore. 

“Oh, wait, was it something about me? ” He asked, remote in his hand, still not playing the video. Clarke and Octavia exchanged a look and they both smiled. 

“I was telling Clarke how cute it is that you’re not insulting each other all the time anymore.” He nodded and pushed the play button, the movie finally resuming

“It’s just a truce, for the holidays, you know,” Bellamy said then, although he didn’t sound as convinced as he wanted to be. 

*

“So, I have to tell you something but please don’t freak out,” Octavia said as soon as she hopped into Clarke’s car, the next Monday. She wasn’t late and that was suspicious enough, and now she had something important to say. 

“Okay, I won’t,” Clarke said, turning to her friend, her foot still on the brakes pedal. “Is this something you can tell me while I’m driving or should we stay here?” 

“No, no. You can drive,” Octavia answered, and Clarke started driving. “You have to promise me, Clarke, you’re not going to freak out, okay?” 

“I promise, O.” 

“So. Uhm. You know Lincoln?” Clarke didn’t answer, thinking it was a rhetorical question but Octavia was looking at her, apparently waiting for her to say that yes, she knew Lincoln.

“How could - yes, yes. I know Lincoln from the cafè. Unless you meant another Lincoln? How many people with that name are there in our town?” 

“I’m not appreciating your sarcasm right now, girl.” 

“Ok, I’m sorry. Go on.” 

“So. One day last month I went to the cafè without you guys, I think I was there with one of the girls from the squad. And, uhm, he wrote his number on my cup.” Clarke rolled her eyes. She promised she wasn’t going to freak out, she hoped eye rolling was allowed, because this story was going to need a lot of that for sure. “I didn’t text him for like a week. But then in the end I saw him again at the café and when I got out of there - I wrote him. I was afraid he was going to spit in my cup or something, but he was so nice, so in the end I thought, why not? So we’ve been texting for like three weeks now.” 

“And that’s all?” Clarke asked. 

“So far, yes. But I’m telling you because I’m seeing him today for the first time.” 

“Oh, wow. So he talks.” 

“That’s your main concern?” 

“Yes. He never told me anything except for taking my order, thanking me and shouting my name. And also, why didn’t you tell me sooner?” She asked, as she parked her car in her usual spot. 

“I don’t know - I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want to jinx it. And you know how trusting my gut has never worked before, so I told him immediately, that I wanted to know him first. And he didn’t push it, I was the one telling him to go on a date. And - the truth is, Clarke, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way before.” Clarke looked at Octavia, turned the ignition off. Her friend seemed genuinely happy and she had only  _ texted  _ the guy so far. They got out of the car, Octavia practically bouncing at the idea of her date that evening. 

“Oh and don’t you dare tell anything to Bellamy.” 

“Since when have I ever told anything private about you to your brother?” Clarke asked, confused. They had talked quite a bit since she got back from Los Angeles, but it was always some playlist from Bellamy or a dumb comment here and there on instagram. 

“Since you’re all friendly now, I’m telling you, just in case,” she said, shrugging. “You know how protective he gets,” Octavia explained. Her last boyfriend, the one who cheated on her multiple times, had a black eye for a week and still looked the other way when he met Octavia in the corridors at school. She sure as hell wasn’t going to tell anything to Bellamy. 

Bellamy who, coincidentally, texted Clarke later that day, as she was watching tv with her dad after dinner (Mexican takeaway, his choice), waiting for some news from Octavia. He had sent a picture of Roan’s kitchen, with all the people from that night around the table, except for her. 

_ Roan says you’re very welcome to come back anytime you want.  _

_ That’s sweet of him. i think my mom is starting to accept the idea of me going to art school, they’re thinking about coming in february.  _

_ Are your parents coming over for mojito night too?  _

_ Sure, told them all about it. They can’t wait.  _

A while later, Clarke was sorting through her old drawing folder, looking for some good ones to submit for her application. She kept on changing her mind, so she was sending them in the group chat with the others, hoping for some different opinions. She could count on Raven for honest opinions, Monty too, but he always cared to state that “I’m not an expert or anything, but…” and Jasper always seemed to find the ones with Octavia in it the most beautiful. Octavia wrote her just as she was about to check on her, assuring her that everything went great on her date with Lincoln and she was going to tell Clarke in detail the next morning.

*

Clarke was a great student. She wasn’t going to be valedictorian maybe, but she had great marks in all the subjects she took. Most of them, anyway. Biology? She aced biology. Chemistry, with some effort, she understood it. But math, despite having a dad who was an engineer, was the one she had more problems with. She was lucky to be friends with people like Monty and Raven, who could crack formulas with the bath of an eye and even had the patience to help her. And so Raven was explaining her “everything as if I was a 5-year-old child,” as Clarke told her the first time she asked for her help. And so she did, for the past four years. “Do you think he thinks we’re spying on him?” Raven asked, voice low. They were at the coffee shop and Lincoln was working, but Octavia was at cheer practice so it was only the two of them. 

“Should we tell him something, maybe?” Clarke whispered, and Raven shrugged. 

“Maybe we should stop whispering, he’s looking at us,” Raven said, and then started laughing out of nowhere.

“What was that?”

“Pretending you were saying something funny so he wouldn’t think we were talking about him.” 

“We’re going at my place next time,” Clarke commented. 

“Fine by me, your dad owns me that college talk from last time, remember?” 

“Oh, god. Right. He’s actually home today because he’s leaving for a work trip tomorrow. We could go now if you want to. I need, like, a three-hour break from math anyway.” 

“You don’t even have to ask, Clarke.” 

“You know my dad’s married, right?” They both laughed, packed their books and said bye to Lincoln on their way out.

*

Just like every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas time seemed to speed up, with tests coming up on every subject, the deadlines for college applications coming closer - Clarke’s constant worry, are my parents going to accept my choice, if I do get into art college? Especially Abby, who was slowly starting to accept the idea. Clarke was happy about it, but at the same time there was a voice creeping inside of her, saying that she was okay with it because her mom was sure she wasn’t going to get in. 

Octavia’s reassurance, why would they book a trip to California if they don’t believe in your plan? But I applied to other schools in California. And that was how they spent half of the time when they saw each other. Less than before now, but Clarke wasn’t angry at her. She could see her friend was happy, and that he was also into her, when Octavia finally convinced Lincoln to go out with all of them one Saturday night, the week before the Christmas holidays. That poor guy knew all of them already but only had to serve them coffee and thank them, but a whole evening with them, pretending to be interested in their bullshit? That’s how Clarke knew that he truly cared about Octavia. He wasn’t a big talker, but Lincoln told them how he dropped out of school and came back to his hometown and was now saving money before leaving for a trip around Europe, hoping that it would finally clear his head and let him understand what he wanted to do next. When he spoke, Clarke could see Octavia’s eyes sparkling, and so she drew them as soon as she got home that night. She was having a lot of inspiration lately, bringing her sketchbook wherever she went: she drew Raven, Monty and Jasper in various moments of the school day, her parents hugging on the couch one night while they were watching a movie, Octavia in her room, a huge smile on her face as she was texting Lincoln. She hoped her work could convey what those people were feeling and how she felt with them - safe, a warmth that only family could give you.  _ Family _ . That word was still echoing in Clarke’s head, in a voice that she wasn’t expecting would resonate so much with her.

Bellamy came back home with Miller on the 23rd, and this time Clarke went to the airport with Octavia. 

“Are you going to tell him?” Clarke asked, in one of the rare occasions in which Octavia would drive. 

“Oh no. I’m planning to keep it a secret from him and mom until the wedding. Maybe even after,” she answered, eyes on the road. 

“O. Please.” 

“I’ll have to wait some more, you know, I don’t need him to go look for him and make a scene at the café or something, ” she explained. Clarke understood her reasoning, she knew the length Bellamy went to protect her sister, and even if Lincoln was a great guy, Bellamy didn’t know him. “But it means the world to me that you guys love him, you know?” She added then. 

“That’s just because of his lattes, O. No one actually enjoys his personality,” Clarke said, as serious as she could. Octavia looked confused by the statement, tried to keep a neutral face. She thought she was getting away with it, but then Clarke started to laugh. “Did you believe me?” 

“Not even for a second!”

“Oh, you did. I could see you got a bit tense there for a second.” Octavia took one hand off the steering wheel and hit Clarke on the arm. “Hey!” She protested.

“That’s what you deserve for making fun of me like that.” 

They got to the airport a while later, the flight was about to land, so Clarke and Octavia hurried to get some coffee for the boys and for themselves while they waited for them to come out. 

“Can you imagine that it’s how it’s going to be, for the rest of our lives?” Octavia said all of a sudden, looking in the general direction of the closed arrivals door. 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s going to be like this. Getting excited about meeting at airports because we won’t be seeing each other for the most part of the year.” 

“Wait, are you Clarking now?” 

“Clarking? Oh god, let me guess. Is this something Monty and Jasper came up with?” 

“Exactly. They say I’m clarking anytime I’m saying something super sentimental about our future.”

“If so then yes, I’m totally clarking. Bellamy left in August and I’m already tired of this spiel. I’m sure I’m going to hate this airport. I mean, I kind of hate it already.” 

“Do you?” Clarke asked, before realizing what this was about. 

“Yeah you know, those times dad would come to visit. That one time a month, until he didn’t anymore. But every time I saw him leaving at the gate, I was heartbroken all over again,” Octavia explained, and Clarke hugged her, trying her best to keep the coffees standing. Octavia put her head on Clarke’s shoulder, sighing deeply. “Sorry. I shouldn’t get upset about it anymore, he doesn’t deserve all the love I’ve given him.” 

“You and Bellamy should stop saying you’re sorry when you’re talking about your dad.”

“Why, did he talk to you about dad?” Octavia asked, slowly getting her head up. 

“Uhm, kinda. In LA, but we had been drinking,” Clarke explained. “Why do you look so surprised?” 

“He hardly ever talks about it, even with me. That’s why,” Octavia said, but didn’t have much time to elaborate because the guys were there. Bellamy ran to his sister and hug her tight, while Clarke offered one of the coffees to Miller. He smiled, grateful, sipping the coffee. 

“Hey, Clarke.” Bellamy said, and Clarke turned too fast, spilling the coffee all over his shirt. 

“Oh god. I’m sorry. So sorry,” she said, grabbing the now empty cup from the ground. He shook his head, made a gesture as if to say, it’s no big deal. They tried to locate someone who could clean the mess, while Bellamy went to the toilet to change his shirt. Octavia was the one to find a man who said he was going to tell the cleaning department, and so they waited for Bellamy, always the slow one when it came to the bathroom, according to his sister. 

“Got too emotional there, didn’t you?” Miller said, nudging Clarke. She looked at him, puzzled, and he brushed it off, said: “just joking, man.” And he was finally out of the bathroom, Octavia already in a hurry to lead them all back to the car. 

Aurora was home to greet his son back home, and Clarke didn’t want to intrude that family moment, but Octavia wasn’t going to drop her off at her house. 

“My car, my rules.” 

“You know I can call an Uber or something, it’s like a ten minutes ride,” Clarke pointed out from the back seat. 

“Not my car, but I’m also inviting you to dinner if it’s worth anything,” Bellamy said, turning to look at her. 

“I hate you both,” Clarke said, and once again, she decided to give up and go to their place. 

When they got to the door Aurora was there, welcoming her son with wide, open arms. Octavia joined in the hug, and Clarke stayed on the side, looking at them, the raw emotion of the moment. 

“What are you doing, Clarke? Come here,” Aurora said, and Clarke came to her side, the woman kissing her on the head. “You all got so big. I can’t believe you’re not running naked around the pool anymore.” 

“We stopped doing that 14 years ago, mom,” Octavia said, annoyed by her mom’s remarks about them growing up. 

“This is really sweet and all, but can we go inside? I’m freezing.” 

“My son has become a Californian. What a shame.” 

Clarke didn’t regret staying over for dinner. Aurora, unlike her mom, was a great cook and always made kick-ass lasagna, and she always made it a lot of it, so Clarke could bring some of it back home. The woman got up right before serving dessert and came back with a gigantic photo album, and despite her son and daughter's protests, she put in on the table, right in the middle. 

“You’ll thank me when you’re older and you’ll want to remember how cute you were as a child,” she said to them, as she slowly cracked the album open. 

“I’ll still be cute when I get older, so I won’t need this,” Octavia said, and Bellamy gave her a high five, said,  _ great answer, O. _ Aurora ignored them, as she kept going through the pictures, pointing the funniest ones to them. Clarke was in some of them, there were some with their friends that moved out of town, cousins. There wasn’t a single picture with their dad. Clarke knew that, at the beginning, Aurora had hidden all of the pictures somewhere, and when she wanted to get rid of them, Octavia had convinced her mom to give them all to her. They fought about it for days, and in the end that box was saved, and was now buried in Octavia's closet. There weren’t many of them, anyway - not with the kids. He left his wife when Octavia was still a toddler, and moved with her new girlfriend in North Carolina. They used to see him once a month when they were younger, but the more they grew the more he started making up excuses not to see them. And so there was no trace of him in that photo album, Clarke thought, and he didn’t deserve to be, after all. 

“Oh, I love this picture of the two of you!” Aurora cried, pointing at a picture of little Clarke and little Bellamy, hugging. Clarke had no memory of that - she didn’t look older than 4. They were on vacation all together that year, that she knew because her parents had also shot tons of pictures. Her dad’s family had a house in Cape Cod, and the picture was taken on the beach close to it. “I think it’s the last time I managed to take a picture of the two of you being nice to each other. The next year you were already being mean to her, Bell.” 

“Me?  _ They  _ ganged up against me,” Bellamy protested. 

Octavia caressed his cheek, said mockingly “Oh you poor thing.”

“It’s nice to see you’re all getting along again, now. Took you 14 years.” Aurora smiled, looked at Bellamy and then at Clarke. They exchanged a brief look.

She always knew she felt home, there, with the Blakes. That day she realized that the concept had slightly shifted. Not in a bad way, but Clarke was confident that what she was feeling right then, as she looked at that picture once again, was something she had never felt before. 

Clarke took the picture back home with her, along with a few other ones of her and Octavia, a couple of the three of them, and a more recent one of the two of them with Monty and Jasper, back in middle school. She started drawing immediately, her muse fully awake that night, and for a brief moment, Clarke truly believed she was going to get into Art College.   
  



End file.
